A Primary Head Teacher's Point of View

In recent years, the education conference landscape has changed dramatically. There are still the same traditional conferences knocking about the place but they are being eclipsed by a grass roots movement of pedagogy platforms. Teachers are doing it for themselves. What’s more, they’re doing it at weekends and they’re loving it.

I’ve been to my fair share of these and I’ve always left feeling the same things:

Teachers are cool!

Teaching is exciting!

Why does everyone hate SLT?

In my opinion it’s time for leaders to get in on the action and start a revolution of their own.

And, it was with this thought in mind that I jumped at the chance to be involved in a new education conference for the South West. At the moment, it has a date, Saturday 1st July 2017, but no name: #ConferenceWithNoName.

I am determined that, as well as being an incredible day of pedagogical wonder, it will be an opportunity for everyday leaders to have their say too.

I’m looking for leaders who are passionate about education and who unite teachers through their leadership.

Leaders who unify.

Leaders who strengthen.

Leaders who inspire whilst keeping it real.

Leaders who understand.

Leaders who care beyond ofsted and themselves.

If you think you could talk for about an hour, on an element of your leadership, and after that hour people would leave thinking:

Leaders can be cool!

Leading can be exciting!

Who knew you could love SLT?

Then I want to hear from you.

I can’t promise you money. I can’t promise you fame or fortune. But I can promise you a firm handshake and a roomful of people who will be interested and a free drink if it all goes wrong.

If you fancy inspiring the next generation of school leaders, or just want to show people that leadership is a force for good, then please get in touch.

Leave me a comment under this post stating the area of leadership you would be interested in talking about and a way of contacting you (Twitter handle or email) and I will get back to you.

13 thoughts on “Leaders, Assemble!”

This looks like a great idea. I’m sure you’ll get lots of quality people putting themselves forward to speak, but if you’re short I’d love to do an hour. Something like ‘Bull free teamwork and managing ‘difficult teams’ or those areas we don’t teach like memory skills (did a talk at teachmeet recently where I recited first 200 digits of pi from memory, but forgot to take wallet to pub). I’m more positive in person than my blog might suggest.
Or maybe I’ve just had a glass of red and in a mood to volunteer.
Good luck with it all.

Hi
We would be really happy to be involved. We have been able
To benefit from others giving up time to speak so would be happy to repay the debt. Also we are all a bit nerdy about leadership!
If you think we can offer something, please get in touch.

Sounds a great idea and love the leadership aspect. I am based in Bournemouth so hopefully the venue is somewhere reachable in a day, although an over-night might be fun! I would happily share the journey I have been on with my subject leaders on dispersed leadership and the value in developing ‘only do it if it makes a difference’ approach. On a side issue, enjoy your blogs and they help shape my decision making, so thank you!

Hi. Sounds like a great idea, so would be happy to get involved. My area of experience would be leading in a special school, including assessment, CPD and initial teacher training. Also, the role of SLE working within an alliance of schools. Contact me on twitter – @pjjames. Good luck with it.

If it is accessible – I would be up for putting my vision out there….. I do love to talk. Mine would be from the heart showing how a wellbeing technique can change the entire ethos of a school and go from 150 exclusions and x5 HT in the same year (2years ago) to top 1 % of schools nationally and the main Primary School that the WR Maths Hub send visitors to….. not bad for the most deprived Primary School in Leeds

If you’re short on numbers I’d be happy to do a slot – maybe on what we’ve done/are doing to improve/reduce teacher workload without impacting negatively on standards. Or something like that. @headteachdunn

I’d be delighted to talk for an hour at your as-yet-unnamed conference in July. Over the past few years, I’ve worked with a couple of hundred schools helping them implement change, and lately have distilled that experience into some meaningful advice for school leaders. I regularly speak at conferences, teachmeets and other events and my talks routinely get great feedback. I’m working with a number of schools in Bristol at the moment who’d vouch for me, I’m sure, and if you want a sneak preview I’m talking at 11:30 on 3rd Dec as part of Google’s global #EducationOnAir initiative. People think I am all about the tech, but nothing could be further from the truth: I’m much more interested in pedagogy than technology, and even more than that I’m interested in things that make a difference to young people’s life-chances. Drop me line at the email below or on @edintheclouds. I may be a freelancer but I don’t do sales pitches, by the way.
Cheers,
Mark Allen